Oh boy, I've had this idea for sooo long but was never satisfied to continue until recently. This fic is slightly inspired by all the tropes and situations that kind of lingered in my memory from all the dbz fics I read here when I was 11-14.
Also, this fic will contain mature content, lemons etc, but I've decided to play around with the idea of not incorporating a lot of swearing in the dialogue, because I feel like it cheapens the characters. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ or the characters portrayed in this story, and all that fun stuff.
Breathe in the light,
I'll stay here in the shadows.
CHAPTER ONE: Lights Outside Capsule Corp
A loose screw rolled silently along the marble bench and landed with a soft ting onto the linoleum floor. Bulma put down the gadget she had been tinkering with and with a noise of exasperation, blew a blue lock from her face. Nothing seemed to be working for her. She had a deadline she'd been losing sleep over, yet she had an itch that she wouldn't meet it anyhow.
And now, live from the streets of West City, is the story baffling locals. Just hours ago, residents from all over Japan left their homes to stare in awe as mysterious lights…
Bulma's curiosity diminished as quickly as it had peaked. People were always making a big deal over things in the sky. It was always 'lights' nobody seemed to get a video of, or it ended up being something of her own father's invention. He was famous for strange aircraft designs. The military admired him for it.
The report droned off into mere white-noise in the distance.
The day that aliens make contact with West City is the day I selflessly offer them my brains and beauty, she mused. The idea was far-fetched. At least 'Bulma, the Intergalactic Queen' was something that could sate her high maintenance lifestyle and the impulse to be dramatic.
Bulma got up from her seat, and straightened out the ache in her back. It was a wonder how she had ever maintained her physical health.
She glanced down at the expensive watch that adorned her wrist. It was half-past ten. A certain tiredness overcame her, but she didn't feel the need to sleep yet. She always figured it was better to work until she had to lifelessly drag herself to the closest leather couch than to toss and turn in an empty bed, alone with her thoughts and unspoken insecurities.
Not that there were many, of course, but they were always amplified by the loneliness she often felt.
Bulma was damn close to perfect; at least, the closest out of anyone she had ever met, and she'd met them all. Celebrities, renowned scientists, eccentrics… She always had something they didn't. She was beautiful, cunning, extremely intelligent with a fiery personality and a passion for many things that she utilised to her advantage.
So why can't I find a damn boyfriend? Bulma thought bitterly. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and stepped outside the west entrance.
The cool air hit her immediately, wind whipping around her blue locks as goosebumps rose on her exposed skin. She'd been wearing an orange playsuit, paired with a white shawl that didn't seem to fight off the chill that creeped over her as much as she hugged it close. The grass was soft and cold and damp under her bare feet as she slowly covered the length from Capsule Corp to the gazebo in the middle of the yard.
The wind died down, and something felt off.
The air was still. The only sound to accompany her sharp breaths of cold air was the distant barking of a dog… or three, yapping somewhere down the road. It felt as if the birds and the insects stopped to watch.
Bulma always felt comfortable on her property. It was mostly just her and her mother, with the occasional employee hanging about. She'd often go to the gazebo, which had been fitted with furniture reminiscent of a living room, when she was bored or just needed a break. But, for probably the first time since the death of her father, she felt like she should go back inside.
It was a feeling, a gut instinct that something was terribly wrong or out of place, but she couldn't place her finger on it. It was a discomfort to the atmosphere, a noticeable shift in nature itself.
As she halted, no more than 3 meters from her desired destination, a light blinded her. Bulma shielded her eyes, heart in her throat as she froze in place from fright. It was comparable to a dozen spotlights, all simultaneously switched on in the sky above.
The intensity of the lights diminished, as they moved further upward. More distracting than the sudden occurrence, however, was what sounded like the crack of a whip, and then the ground Bulma stood on trembled.
She peeked open an eye, and when her vision sufficiently adjusted to her surroundings, the other snapped open. Blue eyes wide as plates, she stared at the figures before her. Cracks veined out in the ground under their white boots, spreading over the pasture with patterns of lightning from the craters in which they now stood. Two men; one big in height and build, and the other much shorter and less bulky.
With the light above illuminating the people that had appeared out of nowhere, she observed them.
The taller one was bald, save for some weak facial hair. He wore a smirk that Bulma could only guess the meaning of. The man beside him was a few feet shorter, his hair stood like flame, the coal-black colour accentuated his eyes, which were narrowed in what seemed like irritation.
"You – woman," flame-o addressed rudely. He was dressed in blue spandex and some weird armoured chest plate on top. "State your purpose."
Bulma was flabbergasted.
Not only was this guy incredibly rude, but he ordered her as if she was imposing on his property. As far as she was concerned, she didn't answer to anybody, especially not weird men that fall from the sky.
Did they even know who they were speaking to?
"My name is Bulma! And state your purpose, you creep!" She countered, on the defensive.
The taller, bald man advanced on her slowly, his figure towering the closer he got.
"You have some nerve speaking to Prince Vegeta like that," he said. Prince? Pfffft. He looked like he couldn't even ride the teacups at Disneyland. The thought was amusing, but Bulma's firm expression never broke, especially when the man took another menacing step closer. "I ought to teach you a lesson."
Bulma backed away.
"I'm a scientist and inventor. Haven't you heard?" She gestured crudely to the large, dome-shaped building behind her that was impossible to miss. The Capsule Corp logo should have been a dead giveaway to anybody who knew anything, which is partially why she felt a spike of fear deep inside. Even foreign people knew of the business. "You guys aren't from around here, are you?"
The large bald man halted in his tracks, a deep rumbling laugh came from the short man still standing where he had first appeared, with his arms folded across his chest. Bulma looked him up and down, her eyes nearly bulging out when she noticed it; something brown and furry wrapped tight around his waist. She looked timidly to the closer man and noticed he also had one.
"We're visiting," the one known as Vegeta said with an air of sarcasm to his tone. Or was it pretentiousness she could detect? Either way, it was far off from her own attitude; she never sounded that rude saying two very general words. "We were pointed in this direction. Unfortunately, the last city to have crossed our path had some… minor difficulties."
"Minor difficulties?"
He spoke as if he were referring to an object, like an electronic device that encountered some technical malfunction, rather than a thriving community of living, breathing people. It was kind of pathetic; but Bulma found herself doubting that he would have any regard for a thriving community of living, breathing people anyhow, if 'minor difficulties' meant what it sounded like he had meant. For the sake of her friends in the neighbouring cities, she hoped not.
"They wouldn't divulge the information we required. So, we obliterated them. It would be a shame if the same thing had to happen to you, wouldn't it?"
The world stopped spinning. Bulma's breath hitched in her throat as she stared, as if it had been the most insane, yet totally plausible thing she'd heard all year. It probably wasn't; with her status and fortune, and the events she attended every month, she had heard and experienced it all. Hell, there was even the incident with the man who had been stalking her for months. He found a way to tap her phone, and showed up uninvited to an exclusive party.
With a gun.
Even though that was a terrifying moment in her life, she had been able to rationalize it. Obsession was a dangerous thing. A lot of people were subjected to it; celebrities, and normal civilians alike. It was something close to human, as unfortunate as it was. This, here, in front of her – granted it was real and she wasn't dreaming the entire thing - was different. It was pure unadulterated evil, with no good motive that she knew of yet.
Bulma felt the world falling from beneath her feet, as she observed the expressions of the men. Their looks were pointed and mischievous, yet there was nothing that she could take as a sign of lying. She considered the close friends she had made over the years, all over Japan and close to West City. For their sake, she prayed they were.
"A real shame," Bulma muttered, her voice cracking slightly as the words came out in barely above a whisper. Her throat was so dry. She calculated her next move. She could run, but she didn't like her chances. She was a bold woman, not suicidal. The final conjecture was for Bulma to play her cards carefully until she knew exactly what she was up against. "What do you need to know?"
"Unfortunately," Vegeta begins, his eyes cast to the ground. He had no interest in hiding his amusement as he made his proposition – except it wasn't some business pitch. Hell, it wasn't even a proposition, because Bulma had no choice in the matter. "You're going to be spending some time with us."
"Like hell," she had managed to steady her voice significantly in order to spit out the two simple words of doubt, before she even had the chance to stop and reconsider the possibility that they weren't forces to be reckoned with.
Words had great, influential power; too bad they always got Bulma into situations she couldn't dig herself out.
"Don't say we didn't warn you."
As Vegeta took another step forwards, Bulma did what she had been aching to do since the first mysterious instance in which the pair had appeared; she booked it in the other direction. She felt the dirt and grass coat the bottoms of her feet as she ran, still sufficiently cool, but no longer comforting. It didn't feel like freedom.
The door was so close, she could nearly feel the handle in her fingertips. She could feel the ghost of herself ripping the door damn-near off its hinges and then running to the phone to reward whichever private militia would arrive first. Between the thoughts of panic and strategy becoming confused in her mind, Bulma barely noticed that there were no footsteps slamming heavily on the pasture behind her.
In fact, other than her own dainty footsteps, the night had become suspiciously silent once again.
Bulma slammed into something, hard.
She hadn't even reached the outer wall of her home yet. Yet, there she was, stumbling back, her nose feeling heavy as the throbbing pain from the impact spread across her face. It was like running straight into a brick wall. There was a piercing pain behind her eyes, and she could practically feel the migraine pulsing to life.
All she could think as she hit the dirt, was how fast they must have moved for her not to have noticed them. It wasn't humanly possible, unless they had somehow gotten their hands on the new Dino Caps. That was unlikely, Bulma concluded, because they were still in the early stages of development.
The bald man loomed over her, his look of amusement replaced by the grave expression of somebody who was becoming quickly tired of Earth and its inhabitants. Vegeta was a little less imposing in stature, but he made up for it with what Bulma assumed was rank – despite being a prince as was established moments ago, the taller man seemed to require his approval before acting. Vegeta, with that shit-eating grin still adorned on his otherwise cute face, snatched up the collar of Bulma's playsuit in one gloved hand, pulling on the material until her back was straight and her face was inches from his own.
"Pull a stunt like that again, and you won't like the consequences," he said, and let go of her suit. She fell back into the slumped position she had landed in, hand falling over her head as she tried to comprehend everything that had happened since she had tuned into the radio. "Nappa, bring her."
Mysterious lights.
They had come in some sort of spaceship. The news had been accurate for once; talk of aliens, and first encounters… Now she was being abducted by two of them. Bulma's eyes travelled up to the sky. There was nothing.
Bastards.
Nappa's fist closed around Bulma's bicep, easily encasing a large portion of her limb in his enormous hand with room to spare. His fingers dug into her flesh, prodding her muscles, nearly shifting them under her skin as he guided her across the pasture. She cried out in pain, ignored by the mulish duo. They stopped just on the outskirts of the yard.
"Let me go, please. I'll tell you what you need. I have cash. I'm – I'm too pretty to die," Bulma blurted, the panic rising. Her eyes narrowed when Nappa refused to even spare a glance at her, and she began to thrash and hit and kick, the best she could with one arm so tightly held. "Let go of me, you creep! Let – me—go—"
Nappa laughed. Vegeta simply grunted.
A strange distant engine startled Bulma, growing in volume as a cluster of lights appeared in the distance. They grew closer, spreading out as they advanced towards their location, until they formed a perfect circle. Wind whipped Bulma's blue locks around her face as the vehicle whooshed to a stop directly above the three of them, hovering patiently as a circular door on the underside of the ship slid apart with a mechanical whirring. A beam of light flooded out from the opening, blinding Bulma once more.
She watched in awe as Vegeta, with his arms folded angrily, rose from the ground, and disappeared into the ship. Nappa followed. Bulma was forced onto the tips of her toes, and let out a displeased yell when they lost contact with the Earth's surface. Her arm throbbed and pulsated in Nappa's hand; she was going to have a nasty bruise. Her stomach dropped, the enormity that was Capsule Corp grew significantly miniscule the further she was dragged into the air.
Bulma didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to her mother. Hell, she didn't even get to pack any shampoo. That was the real crime.
The air grew warm, as the sharp lighting became brighter through her eyelids clenched desperately shut. An involuntary gasp left Bulma's quivering lips when her feet contacted a solid surface. She clung to Nappa, untrusting of her jelly-like legs to hold her weight. Instead, she simply peeked open one eye, taking in her surroundings.
The silvery-white walls gleamed. A large window dominated the impressively high wall in front of where she stood, giving view to the deep black sky littered with stars. She could see the faint outline of the city below, and the jagged peaks of the mountain beyond. The rounded room was mostly empty, except for the cluster of grotesque men in similar armour to Vegeta gawking at her, and a strange-looking chair in the middle.
"Who's this pretty little thing?" A more human-like man with particularly long black hair asked, and stepped forwards to examine Bulma a little invasively. She swatted his wondering hands, brows furrowed in discontent. "Feisty."
"I don't know and frankly – I don't really care," Vegeta muttered matter-of-factly, watching as the lower-class Saiyan, Raditz, taunted the human woman he didn't care for much. As far as he was concerned, humans were below him. Hell, even his own men were below him. He had one true priority, and that was his own ambitions. "She's here with one purpose. Do what you want with her. Be my guest – just try to keep her alive for your own sake."
"Keep your hands to yourself, creep. And you—" Bulma pointed an accusatory finger at Vegeta. "—will tell your men to stay the hell away from me if you want the information you need. Got it?"
Her bold personality was what helped her succeed in life. After all, you don't do business with some of the biggest corporations on Earth if you can't firmly make a pitch. However, she wasn't swapping gadgets for a six-digit number. Bulma was gambling her own life, with the words flying out of her mouth before she could even stop to wonder if they made sense in the first place. Sometimes, she wished she had a filter.
"You're hardly in a position to make threats," Vegeta countered, adopting his amused expression and tone from earlier. She'd love to wipe the damn thing off his face for good. "What with your broken nose, and poor decision-making skills."
"The only poor decision I've made is not hitting you upside the head. Arrogant jerk."
The room fell silent, as his crew looked onwards to their prince, awaiting his response with anticipation. Bulma stood her ground, glaring daggers at Vegeta, who's own expression hardened. At least she had the ability to affect him, even if not physically. That grain of knowledge satisfied her more than she could admit aloud in a room full of his dedicated followers; it gave her the confidence she needed not to crumble when his glare slowly lifted into a crazed grin.
Jeez, the first chapter is finally done. The next chapter is vegeta's reaction, of course, and more of a look into bulma's new personal hatred for him (and vice versa) and the living conditions in which she is now stuck. Reviews are appreciated & thanks for reading!
